Four albums into his solo career, Brad Cole decided to switch things up a bit.

“To some degree, I’m kind of over myself a little bit,” he laughs. “I’ve been running around as a singer-songwriter for many years now and it’s gone really well.”

But Cole’s mojo was working toward a different direction. Meet Bossa Blue.

“His project was born out of a very particular geeked-out passion I have for Bossa and the artistic world that was basically the early 1960s to the early 1970s,” Cole said. “I’m unapologetically in that space. And what I do as a singer-songwriter is a little bit there, but this is my excuse to go there stylistically and completely do things the way I want to do them musically.”

On Oct. 4, Bossa Blue will begin a weekly residency at Caffe Vivaldi in New York City, playing two sets every Wednesday night for a month. The gigs will not only see the band play the covers that have already been thrilling audiences, but the first set on Oct. 11 and Oct. 25 will see them perform selections from the James Taylor songbook.

“We have radically changed a lot of them, some of them not so radically,” he said of the 14 Taylor selections. “But the components of melody, structure and rhythm and the arrangement of the vocal, we have taken a lot of liberties with these songs.”

When Cole talks of these songs and his new project, you can hear the excitement in his voice, and it’s genuine.

“It’s been great,” he said. “It is certainly a guilty pleasure for me with some of these songs, and some of them are just a huge challenge. But we want the challenge. This gets me out of bed every morning and I want to put time into this on stage and manage a band to do all this. It’s so worth it on many levels.”

And while it isn’t the easiest process in the world to take some classics like Bruce Springsteen’s “Brilliant Disguise,” Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home” and The Killers’ “When You Were Young” and put them in a whole new musical light, Cole and company don’t just pull it off, but in some cases (and I’m not naming names), they surpass the originals.

“Honestly, I get both opinions,” Cole said. “The people who get it are knocked out, and I think they get the idea of let’s renew. And there are some people who don’t want to stray away. The analogy is that nobody will make chicken soup better than your mother. So if you’re gonna try to do chicken soup like my mom, it better be spot on. But if you want to add chorizo and do something sexy and make it different, well, the world is full of both kinds of people.”

If you’re of the group that believes only mom can make good chicken soup, Bossa Blue does deserve your ears without any pre-existing biases. If you do that, it’s impossible not to be taken in. And along the way, Cole has been taken in by a batch of songwriters that he appreciates in a new way.

“Expressing myself in that area means that I’m opening up some doors that I really wasn’t going through as a singer-songwriter, probably just because of habit,” he said. “So I’m pushing myself more melodically, more from a range standpoint, and I’m very intimate with the structure and the lyric behind these tunes, especially the James Taylor ones that I’ve become uber intimate with in terms of the storytelling. But where it’s really affecting me is opening up other arrangements that I wasn’t really doing and opening up a melodic range that I’ve noticed in my own playing and my current writing, and that’s the best gift an artist can get.”

Now he’s giving that gift back to the listeners.

“Some people care about branding, I don’t really care about that,” Cole said. “I’m just trying to make some music that’s good.”

Bossa Blue begins its residency at Caffe Vivaldi in NYC on October 4. For more information, click here

JUNE NEWSLETTER

June 2015

Greetings from sunny New York City!

It's been a great last month playing shows and making music. A shout out and thank you to all of my friends in Austin and Kerrville, we had a blast! I once again came away inspired by so many performances, so many smiles and even the rain - thank you for the spirit.

While it's great to be home, I am ready to keep the music and that spirit moving. I'm gassing up the truck (I got a new truck by the way, named Moses, she's beautiful) and I'm ready to hit the open road and play some shows for you all! Speaking of which...

Sweet Home ChicagoDid I really design a job where I get to spend three weeks in Chicago in June? Not a job, it's heaven. I will be at the Old Town Art Fair the afternoons of June 12th and 13th at the corner of North Park and Menomenee in the heart of Old Town. The following weekend I will be at the Gold Coast Art Fair the afternoons of June 20th and 21st. I do these shows with my homies Jeff Libman, Tad Santos, Owen Cooper and some surprise guests - we are better known as Check With Lucy. These are very happy, barefoot days for me, so stop by and get happy. Both of these events are free to the public.

Cole, Nakoa and Treacher Form A Super Trio?What?! Yes, well, kind of. Matt Nakoa, Robinson Treacher and I are joining forces for three (possibly more) shows in late July and early August. Matt and Robinson are certainly two of the strongest performers that I have met on the acoustic circuit and I am thrilled that we will be combining voices to play these shows. It will be fun. It will be soulful. It will be big.

Dinner & SongDinner & Song is my twist on a house concert. This will be a show where I come to you home, take over your kitchen, cook a great meal for you and a limited group of close friends and then play a set in your home. I love this set up, I love to cook - rumor is that I'm pretty good at it. I would love to bring it to your home. If you are interested in booking a Dinner & Song evening or want more details, please email info@bradcolemusic.com.

So the record is almost done! Here is the latest episode of On The Record - my YouTube series on the making of the record. I have received some great feedback from a lot of you about our little vignettes, thank you and keep it coming!

I've learned and grown more from making this record than I have from my last three combined. There will be more news regarding the release coming soon, please stay tuned!